The Horticulture Centre of the Pacific

I’m heading off to British Columbia today – and, of course, there will be gardens.

My first stop in Victoria is always the wonderful Horticultural Centre of the Pacific.  It’s a combination of display garden and horticultural college (Pacific Horticulture College) with myriad themed gardens. As you enter past the gift shop & nursery area, you come face to face with a lovely burst of color in the Hardy Plant Garden. HCP-Hardy Plant Garden

It’s a little early for the Herb Garden, but I’ll wander through and see what’s new.HCP-Herb Garden

The Mediterranean garden looks better in the summer (below), but there’s always something blooming here too.HCP-Mediterranean garden

The Birds, Bees & Butterflies Garden does a lovely job of attracting them all, HCP-Birds-Bees & Butterflies Garden

but I love to see them on tender plants I never get to see here, like the orange ball tree (Buddleia globosa).  Honey bees on Buddleia globosa

And there are always a few gorgeous Pacific Coast Hybrid irises around as well. Pacific Coast Hybrid Iris
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There’s a Winter Garden that entertains visitors from autumn to early spring and a Heather Garden filled with all manner of Erica and Calluna species.  And I’m hoping the Native Wildflower Garden will have lots of blue camas (Camassia quamash) and fawn lilies (Erythronium oreganum) in bloom.

But the real draw in spring is the Hosta & Rhododendron Garden, with a fabulously colourful array of azaleas and rhodos in a beautiful setting.HCP-Rhododendron Garden

And of course I always make it over to the far side, where the Takata Japanese Garden has a number of beautiful features, such as the dry stream bed…HCP-Takata Japanese Garden

the pond with the zigzag bridge…HCP-Takata Garden Pond

and the serene Zen Garden. HCP-Zen Garden

Visitors to Victoria often stop at Butchart Gardens, and I go there myself whenever I have the time, because they’re second to none as a large-scale display garden.  But the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific is my idea of a little treasure

Primula: My Little Red ‘Firstling’

Some of the first flowers to arrive in Toronto nurseries in spring are the primroses or primulas.  That’s fitting, I think, because, the Latin word primulus means “the firstling of spring”.   Most of the early primroses we see in pots at the greengrocer or garden centre are polyantha types, like this perky ‘Danova Red’.  But, symbolically anyway, primulas always say “first spring thing” to me.  And for my first blog entry in The Paintbox Garden, this little red primrose represents my own “firstling”. 

RED-001-Primula-'Danova-Red'

Though fun to display in a basket on the kitchen table or in a spring-themed pot outdoors, polyanthas aren’t very hardy and tend to die off the next winter. To try to keep one going, plant it in part shade and moist, humus-rich soil and give it protection around the crown after the first freeze.

Primroses are interesting botanically, too.  Look closely at the center of the flowers.  Some have the female stigma thrusting prominently up on its long style with the pollen-bearing anthers far below (“pin” flowers), while others show a ring of male anthers well above the stigma, which sits concealed atop a very short style below (“thrum” flowers). Botanists call this arrangement of sexual organs heterostyly, a scientific word for a genetic chastity belt since it prevents the plants from self-pollinating, thus keeping the species strong.
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Primroses have fascinated collectors for centuries, especially the fantastic Auricula types with their frilly, colourful flowers on stems rising from a rosestte of basal leaves. Auriculas originated in the 16th century with crossings of yellow Primula auricula with red and blue Primula hirsuta. A century later, as the crosses became ever more fanciful, French and Belgian Huguenot weavers built open cupboards to showcase their treasures as ‘theatre’, and to protect them from inclement weather. I loved seeing this whimsical Auricula Theatre at the New York Botanical Garden one April a few years ago.   An annual tradition since 2007, it was designed by the Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury. RED-002-Auricula-Theatre

If you’re fortunate to have a really boggy area like this wonderful stream bed at the Takata Japanese garden at Victoria’s Horticulture Centre of the Pacific, you will likely have good luck with the elegant and hardy candelabra primroses (Primula japonica), whose flowers are born on sturdy stems 30-60 cm (1-2 ft) above the basal leaves. Here a reddish one (likely ‘Miller’s Crimson’) grows with ferns and other shade-loving perennials, adding just the right touch to a predominantly green scene.

RED-003-Primula-Victoria